Uwajima-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about seventy thousand (70,809 in 2020). This city’s population has a step from a merger. Uwajima City took its present city area in 2005 when the former Uwajima City merged with Yoshida Town, Mima Town and Tsushima Town. Before the merger, in 2000, it was the 62,126 of the former Uwajima City; in 2005, with the three towns combined, it became 89,444, and from there it fell gently but steadily after the merger — 84,210 in 2010, 77,465 in 2015, 70,809 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a city in southwestern Shikoku appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 23.6% in 2000 to 39.8% in 2020, nearing four in ten. The household-with-children share was 15.8% (2020), a low figure, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.33 in fiscal 2023 — it can cover only about three-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a very large reliance on the allocation tax. The figure of the castle town of the 100,000-koku Date, losing population and deepening aging after the merger while keeping a zero waitlist, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the Uwajima domain and the rias coast.

Uwajima’s skeleton is set by the geography of a rias coast facing the Uwa Sea and by the history of the castle town placed upon it. The old layer is the castle town. At the start of the Edo era, Date Hidemune, who branched off from the Date house of Sendai, founded the 100,000-koku Uwajima domain in this land in 1614–15. Thereafter the Date house served as lords until the Meiji era, and Uwajima prospered as its castle town. Uwajima Castle still has its keep, standing since its founding — one of the twelve keeps surviving across the nation. A lord who branched off from the Date of Sendai built a 100,000-koku castle in the southwestern corner of Shikoku; this origin set the town’s standing.

And the sea, too, gave this town an industry of its own. The intricate rias coast of the Uwa Sea holds many coves with calm waves. Making use of these coves, pearl aquaculture became thriving in Uwajima, and the aquaculture of fish such as sea bream and yellowtail grew into a major industry. In addition, bullfighting, in which bull contends with bull, has put down roots in this land as a distinctive culture handed down from of old. Holding standing as the castle town of the Date, and with the rias sea raising aquaculture — this town’s shape stands upon the castle-town and the sea history held by the geography of a rias coast facing the Uwa Sea.

What characterizes Uwajima is that, while holding the history of the castle town of the 100,000-koku Date and the aquaculture of the rias coast, it has lost much population and deepened aging after the merger. From the 89,444 of 2005, with the three towns combined, to the 70,809 of 2020, more than eighteen thousand fell over fifteen years. In southwestern Shikoku, a land distant from Matsuyama and Kochi, the flow of the young generation moving to cities is strong, and one can read that the fall of population and the deepening of aging proceed together. That the share aged 65 and over neared four in ten at 39.8% in 2020, and the household-with-children share was low at 15.8%, is also an expression of that population makeup.

That shrinking shows in the fiscal numbers too. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.33 is a level able to cover only about three-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a very large reliance on the allocation tax. It mirrors that, against the expenditure of supporting the wide city area of an intricate rias coast, a town with a tax base founded on aquaculture and local industry has its limits. Even so, the Childcare Waitlist has stayed at zero, and the receiving capacity against the reduced population is held. After the merger, more than eighteen thousand fell over fifteen years, aging nears four in ten at 39.8%, and a fiscal capacity of 0.33 covers only three-tenths of expenditure with tax revenue. The waitlist holds at zero. The position of being the center of Nanyo, far from both Matsuyama and Kochi, lies behind this heaviness.

Uwajima’s history is made of two strands, the castle town and the sea. One is the origin of the Uwajima domain, founded by Date Hidemune, who branched off from the Date of Sendai, holding the standing of a 100,000-koku castle town. Another is Uwajima Castle, whose keep stands since its founding, keeping the weight of being one of only twelve keeps surviving across the nation. And the rias coast of the Uwa Sea gives this town the industries of its own — pearl and yellowtail aquaculture — and the distinctive culture of bullfighting.

The rias coast facing the Uwa Sea gave rise to many coves with calm waves, and raised pearl and yellowtail aquaculture there. The surviving-keep castle town built by a lord who branched off from a great domain of the northeast in the southwestern corner of Shikoku, and the aquaculture shore raised by the intricate sea, stand side by side in the same bosom of the Uwa Sea.